News of the carnage at Vicksburg reaches the Lehigh Valley

JD Malone, Of The Morning Call

As Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia marched north through the Shenandoah Valley toward Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, news of a different, distant campaign reached the Lehigh Valley in the summer of 1863.

None of Northampton County's boys in the 153rd Pennsylvania Infantry fought with Grant's army, but Vicksburg, the cornerstone of the Condederacy's western defenses, became a months-long struggle and riveted readers in the East.

The imagery, quoting a rebel source, of the "Federal dead rotting in front of our works," played to the Democrat's belief that the Civil War was an unjust folly.

The Allentown paper, which supported the Democratic Party and its efforts to bring a negotiated end to the war, quotes The Philadelphia News about the human toll of the war. But the Democrat added its own spin — it called the Philadelphia News an "Administration" paper, meaning that it backed President Abraham Lincoln's leadership and the Union war effort.

"The above is from an Administration paper," the column reads, "and we agree with it that a 'terrible punishment' will overtake the guilty authors of this war."

Vicksburg surrendered on Saturday, July 4 — one day after Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg failed, leaving the Union forces under Gen. George Meade victorious and forcing Lee and his Confederates to retreat back to Virginia.

"The whole north was put in ecstasy … by an official dispatch from Admiral Porter, announcing the surrender of Vicksburg," the Sentinel reported.

"With the glorious victory achieved by General Meade's army in Pennsylvania, the surrender of Vicksburg to General Grant, and the investment of Richmond by General Dix, we begin to think that we see the beginning of the end to this terrible civil war."

The Sentinel's optimism was misplaced, the war would continue for nearly two more years.

Microfilm copies of The Allentown Democrat courtesy of the Allentown Public Library. Copies of The Easton Sentinel courtesy of Easton Area Public Library.